Impossible
by GrayCharacter16
Summary: Everything since the Maze was a lie - everything. Okay, so that's hard to swallow, but from then things just go back to normal, right? That's what Thomas expects, but he couldn't be more wrong. See, he remembers everything that's happened since the Maze - but the others have no idea what he's talking about. They remember things very differently, and distrust runs rampant...
1. Chapter 1

Hey guys, so... the movies and the books have a lot of differences. When I decided to write this I was kind of torn between basing it on the movies and basing it on the books, because I love both. I almost went with the books because they're the original, the real deal, whatever, but I ended up deciding to stick with the movies because there are elements of the books (like Thomas/Teresa's telepathy, Gally being taken by the Grievers days before they got out of the Maze, etc) that would have changed the way things play out in this story.

I guess really I ought to say that it's a blend of the movies and books. Stuff like the Glader slang, which is heavy in the books but is mostly replaced by standard cussing in the movies... that's back, in this story. Also, since the third movie isn't out yet, I'm relying on the plot of the third book (the way Newt and Teresa die, the way they all escape through the flat trans at the end, etc). So it's kind of a book/movie mishmash.

Anyway, that said, I hope you enjoy. :)

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 _The sounds of things crashing and crumbling behind Thomas grew impossibly louder, cracks and creaks and squeals of metal and the hollow roar of flames. All of it rose to an unimaginable pitch; Thomas refused to look, though he sensed it all coming down, as if it were just feet away, its leading edge breathing against his neck. He pushed Brenda through the Trans. The world was collapsing around him and Minho._

 _Together, they jumped into the icy gray wall._

Thomas heaved up from the table, choking and gasping violently. Wires ripped off his head as his body wrenched forward as far is it could and he retched, dry heaving agonizingly and choking all the more at the painful twisting of his insides.

He crumpled onto his back again, still gasping, heart pounding in his throat, staring up wide-eyed at the ceiling. What had happened? Where was he?

Sucking in a deep breath and stamping down on his panic as his adrenaline began to subside, he tried to lift his body up once more; this time he realized he was restrained at the waist, wrists and ankles. A wire – an IV of some sort – ran into his right arm. It only took a moment to pull his hands free – it looked like the cuffs hadn't been checked on in a while and had gradually come loose. With a bit of clawing and scrabbling, he tore the strap around his waist loose and sat up to free his feet.

Then he scrambled off the tabletop, ripping the IV out of his arm, and spun around to stare at the contraption that seemed to have been built around his head. Two probes were designed to hover close to either temple, while an elaborate mess of electrodes dangling from wires which had come loose from his head when he sat up hung from the point where the two probes connected and disappeared back into a small, complex machine the size of a paint can.

"The shuck is this?" Thomas demanded aloud. Hearing his own voice snapped him out of his panicky daze; he scanned the room. The right wall was comprised of a huge bank of sleek, advanced computer screens, while the left wall was devoted entirely to scientific-slash-medical equipment. The front wall was empty, with a glass door set in the middle of it. The machine that had been around his head was built out from the back wall so that the bed, or table, or whatever it was, stood in the middle of the room.

He spotted a camera above the door and instantly wondered who was watching him. WCKD – it had to be WCKD. What had they done? Had the whole escape through the flat trans been a sham? It couldn't all be just another test!

A million questions hammered inside his head, but he made himself ignore them and stay in the moment; he had to find out where he was and find Minho and Brenda and whoever else he could. His questions could wait.

His next instinct was to find some kind of weapon. The wall of equipment provided him with a wide variety of options, so he armed himself to the teeth with scalpels, efficient-looking knives, and a number of things he couldn't identify, but which looked dangerous. As an afterthought, he dismembered the stand that had held his IV and took the shaft, a bar the length of his arm.

Then he got up his nerve and tried the door. To his surprise, it was unlocked; he stepped out into the hall and glanced either way. There were three glass doors to his left and four to his right.

Maybe Minho and the rest were behind these other doors. Heart hammering, he started along the passage to his left. The first door he looked through revealed a room exactly like the one he had just been in, but with somebody lying motionless on the tabletop bed, head resting between the two prongs of the machine. Thomas' heart slammed up into his throat, stopping his breath.

It was Newt.

Was he dead? It was impossible to tell. But he looked – normal. He wasn't a crank!

Breathless with shock, Thomas heaved the door open and bolted to the bedside, calling his friend's name frantically. There was no response, but Thomas found a pulse a moment later.

Newt was alive!

It was impossible to comprehend; Thomas was so stunned that he couldn't even question how this had happened and what it might mean about everything that had happened recently. Newt was alive!

With shaking hands, Thomas uncuffed his friend's hands, feet and waist, ripped the IV out of his arm, then stepped back uncertainly. It took him a moment to realize that a very low hum was emanating from the contraption around Newt's head. Could the one in his room have been doing the same thing, and he had just failed to notice?

He jumped to the conclusion that the machine was keeping Newt unconscious. It was quick work to sabotage the thing; a few wires cut here, a few important-looking parts smashed there. The hum died away and a few sparks splattered onto the floor.

Thomas waited a moment, hoping Newt would come out of it. After a long pause, the blond boy stirred ever so slightly and gave a faint groan. Thomas' heart surged.

What about the others? He still had to find Minho. What about – Teresa! If Newt was alive, could she be, too?

He decided to check the other rooms while Newt was waking up. Quickly, anxiously, he ducked back out through the glass door and dashed to the next one. This room was identical to the previous two; It took him a moment to identify the person on the table as Gally.

Feverishly, Thomas let himself into the room and hastily unshackled Gally, then shut the machine down the same way he had done in Newt's room. Leaving Gally to wake up in his own time, Thomas went to check the last door to this end of the hall.

A glance through the glass revealed Frypan unconscious on the tabletop. Thomas once again smashed up the contraption and uncuffed his friend, then headed for the hall and headed back in the direction of the room he had started in to check the doors toward the other end of the hall.

With no warning, as Thomas hurried past Newt's door, a body crashed into him, slamming him into the wall on the opposite side of the hall. The attacker punched him in the solar plexus, doubling him over, then hammered a fist across his face.

"Newt!" Thomas gasped, jerking upright. "Newt, it's me! It's Thomas!"

His blood was pounding as newfound terror boiled up in him. Newt must still be a crank, and he'd finally snapped.

"You – bloody – slinthead!" Newt snarled, emphasizing each word with a punch that slammed Thomas' head back into the wall. "I'll kill you!"

"Newt!" Thomas' instincts kicked in and he fought back, shoving the other boy away and breaking left so he could back away down the hall as Newt came on, livid with rage. "Newt, please, it's Thomas!"

"I know it's bloody you, Tommy!" The other boy growled, moving toward him with a cocked fist. "I'm going to rip you apart!"

He wasn't a crank. Thomas was sure of it. He lacked that crazed look and tone that he had taken on when he got the Flare. But he meant everything he was saying – Thomas realized that the burning in Newt's eyes was hatred. Real, bloodthirsty, lethal hatred.

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A/N: I'm working on the next part, it'll be up soon. I should warn you guys, though, I'm not a reliable updater... once I run out of steam I'll only update sporadically. I'll do my best, though. Please review! :D


	2. Chapter 2

"Newt, please, I don't want to fight you." Thomas kept retreating, keeping his hands up in front of him. "I did what you wanted!"

"What I wanted?" Newt lunged at him; Thomas scrambled backward, trying to ward the other boy off. "You bloody shot me!"

"I didn't want to do it!" Thomas pleaded, trying to understand what he had done to make his friend so livid. Newt had wanted him to shoot him; Thomas had pleaded and argued and tried to think of a solution, but in the end he had done the merciful thing.

He flinched as Newt got through his guard and raked his fingernails across Thomas' face. Thomas managed to shove the other boy back and kept backing up, keenly aware that he was getting near the end of the hall; he wouldn't be able to retreat much further. "Newt, please, you begged me! What was I supposed to do?"

His back hit the wall and as he scrabbled at the door, trying to open it, Newt was on him, slamming through his guard and hammering furious blows into his gut, his face, his throat. Thomas couldn't make himself fight back.

Then, suddenly, Newt was wrenched backward and flung to the ground; Gally loomed over him.

Before Thomas could speak, Gally was on top of Newt, pounding the smaller boy's face with blow after blow.

"Gally!" Thomas shouted hoarsely, scrambling to intervene. "Get off him! What are you doing?"

He caught Gally by the arms and tried to drag him back; Gally struggled, snarling angrily. "Are you serious, Thomas? After everything he's done?"

"He hasn't done anything!" Thomas yelled.

"Are you crazy?" Gally bellowed back, shoving Thomas off. He didn't go back to attacking Newt, but stood warily as the blond boy picked himself up.

Newt's eyes were darting from Gally to Thomas, still angry but now confused. "What's buggin' wrong with you, Gally?"

"What do you think you're talking about?" The bigger boy barked furiously; Thomas had to jerk him back as he lunged at Newt again.

Newt started back like he couldn't understand why Gally wanted to attack him. "Why are you helping Thomas?"

"Guys, I don't know what the shuck you think is going on, but we've got to get the others out before someone comes and stops us." Thomas tried to channel all the calmness he didn't feel into his tone. "I think they're all in these rooms – there are these weird machines keeping them unconscious."

Still glaring murderously at Newt, Gally stumped to the nearest glass door and looked through it. His eyes narrowed and he spun toward Thomas. "It's Chuck in there."

Thomas' heart bottomed out. It was several seconds before he could rasp hoarsely, "What?"

"It's Chuck!" Gally repeated emphatically, looking not at all happy about that fact. "What is he doing here?"

Thomas and Newt were both moving toward the door, Thomas feeling as though his lungs were straining to get up his throat. How could it be Chuck?

But it was – it was! Chuck was lying motionless on the tabletop, the contraption humming near his head. Utterly disbelieving, Thomas burst through the door and freed his young friend with shaking hands, then ripped wires and smashed parts until the machine's hum died.

Minho was on the table in the next room. The one after that contained, of all people, Winston – alive and showing no symptoms of the Flare!

Thomas' heart hammered as he headed for the final door. He didn't dare wonder or hope . . .

Teresa.

It was her! Minutes ago, she had been bleeding out, completely crushed by a massive chunk of the ceiling. Now she was somehow unharmed.

As Thomas was uncuffing Teresa, Newt burst into the room, shouting wrathfully, "Stay away from her!"

A heavy bar Newt must have taken from one of the IVs crashed across Thomas' head. His senses spun and the floor rushed up at him, crashing painfully against his body. He saw Newt's arm swing up to bring the bar down on him again, but Gally's feet appeared and their two voices rang incoherently in Thomas' ears as they struggled.

Just as he was recovering, another figure appeared – Frypan. He must have heard the commotion as he woke and followed the noise. He took Newt's side, launching himself at Gally with all the ferocity of someone meeting an old enemy.

Thomas scrambled upright, his own crowbar forgotten, and tackled Frypan, shouting, "Hey, Fry, slim it! It's me, it's Thomas!"

Frypan hit him across the face. Thomas reeled back, his mind spinning. What was going on? Why were Newt and Frypan acting like he and Gally were the bad guys?

He heard Newt's voice – "Gally, listen, I don't want to hurt you. There's no way I'm letting Thomas near Teresa."

Then Gally's – "Are you for real? I'm not letting _you_ near Teresa, you shuck traitor!"

Utterly confused, Thomas started toward Teresa again to finish undoing her restraints. As he reached for her Newt's bar dropped over his head from behind and pulled back, cutting off his air. Thomas thrashed, gagging, then hammered an elbow back into Newt's stomach and managed to twist free. Newt squared up to him, bar at the ready. "Don't you dare go near her, Tommy."

"Okay, alright, I won't." Thomas held up his hands pacifically. "But we have to shut down the machine before she can wake up. I'll stand back; you do it."

"Shuck he will!" Gally barked, interposing himself between Newt and the table. "If you think I'm going to let that shank anywhere near Teresa you're crazy!"

"Fine, that's fine, okay?" Thomas answered hastily. "Just – you do it, then, Gally." He shot a glance at Newt. "Is that alright with you, if Gally does it?"

Newt glared for a moment, obviously furious with Gally for siding with Thomas. "Fine."

"Okay, Gally, you've just got to rip out random wires and smash things till it shuts down." Thomas explained, backing cautiously toward where he had left his bar. "I'm going to give you this bar to do it with."

Newt tensed as Thomas picked up the weapon; being careful not to move quickly and provoke his friend again, Thomas came back toward them and extended the bar at arm's length to Gally.

The bigger boy took it and went to work sabotaging the contraption. Frypan, who had been standing warily back, demanded, "What's going on?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Thomas told him. Newt's vicious glare locked onto Thomas once more, silently accusing him – of what exactly, Thomas wasn't sure.

"Listen, let's just wake all the others up and get out of here, and then we can figure all that out, alright?" Thomas proposed carefully.

Newt glared at him for a long moment, then spat, "Good that."

Nobody moved. Thomas glanced from one to the other, trying to get the best understanding he could of what was going on. Newt didn't want to leave Thomas in here with Teresa, and Gally didn't want to leave Newt in here with Teresa.

"Okay, obviously you two don't trust me." Thomas glanced from Newt to Frypan. "Newt, you trust Gally, right?"

"Well, I did till he took your side all of a sudden," Newt growled.

"I don't trust him," Gally spat.

"How about Frypan?" Thomas questioned. "Do we all trust Frypan?"

"I trust Fry." Newt snapped, still glaring murderously at Thomas. After a moment, Gally nodded agreement.

"Then Frypan should stay in here to keep an eye on Teresa, and the three of us should go get the others." Thomas studied Gally and Newt as they weighed his suggestion.

"Why are we working with these slintheads, Newt?" Frypan demanded.

Okay, so Frypan didn't trust Thomas and Gally. Taking note of that, Thomas insisted, "Just until we can get out of here and figure out what's going on."

Deciding it would be better just to act than to wait on them, he headed for the hallway. A moment later he heard Gally's heavy footsteps behind him. A glance over his shoulder told him that Newt was following, too.

Of the four that had yet to wake up, Chuck would be the first to come around, since Thomas had shut down the machine in his room before the others. Thomas ducked through the doorway to see Chuck half sitting, rubbing his eyes woozily.

"Chuck!" Thomas' voice came out as a croak. He couldn't believe his eyes.

The younger boy's gaze lifted; it seemed to take him a moment to recognize Thomas.

Then his eyes widened and he bolted off the bed, putting it between them. "Where am I?"

Thomas started forward – Chuck's voice rose in alarm. "Stay away from me!"

That pulled Thomas up short; he stood flabbergasted. Chuck was afraid of him. Somehow that was just as painful as Newt hating him. Maybe worse.

"Where am I?" Chuck demanded again.

"Hey, man, don't freak out, okay?" Thomas took a precautionary step back. "I don't know where we are. We're all just waking up here."

Just then Gally and Newt appeared behind Thomas. Chuck's eyes grew even wider and began to dart around the room; Thomas realized he was looking for an escape route. Shooting a quick glance over his shoulder at the other two, he recognized their hard expressions; they didn't like Chuck any more than he liked them. Thomas didn't know how to handle this.

His solution was to back out of the room and head for Minho's door. He would give Chuck a minute to orient himself and calm down a bit. It wasn't like they could go anywhere; the door at the end of the hallway was locked, as Thomas had discovered when Newt backed him into it.

As he came through the doorway into Minho's room, he registered that the bed was empty. Bounding forward in alarm, he heard Gally's feet behind him, then the unmistakable sound of metal hitting bone and a shout of pain from Gally.

Thomas whirled around. The bigger boy was on the floor – standing over him with a bar in hand, Minho was spinning toward Thomas, swinging the weapon up over his head.

"Minho!" Thomas threw himself backward, narrowly avoiding a powerful downward sweep from the bar. "It's me! It's Thomas! Calm down!"

How many times had he said those words in the past ten minutes? The thought flashed across Thomas' mind even as he was scrambling backward, looking for something to defend himself with as Minho came at him with another swing. Darting back to avoid that one, Thomas crashed into the shelves of equipment lining the left-hand wall of the room; he couldn't retreat any further.


	3. Chapter 3

Newt was standing in the doorway, watching coldly as Minho brought the bar back again. Thomas wouldn't be able to dodge it this time. His hand scrabbled along the shelf and closed on a plastic tray. Sending the tray's cargo of glass jars shattering across the floor, he swept it up with both hands just in time to block Minho's bar as it swung at his head.

Gally was picking himself up again. Thomas felt a dent sink itself into the tray as Minho tried to hit him again and he blocked the blow, nearly getting the tray wrenched out of his grip. "Minho! Come on, man, it's me!"

Minho didn't answer, just grabbed the bar with both hands at stabbed the end of it at Thomas' face. He managed to get the tray up to block it but his head was still slammed back against the wall.

Then Gally had Minho by the arms and was hauling him back. Thomas caught hold of the bar and twisted it away; Gally and Minho went at it hand-to-hand, pounding each other back and forth across the room, their bare feet scuffing dangerously close to the shards of broken glass Thomas had sprayed across the floor.

"Guys!" Thomas shouted uselessly at them. "Come on!"

Gally clocked Minho in the face, spinning him around. Unable to see another solution on the spur of the moment, Thomas swung the bar full power at Minho's head.

Minho crumpled. Thomas bounded forward before Gally could attack him again. "Slim it! He's with us!"

"No he's not!" Gally snarled, shoving Thomas back. "What's wrong with your shuck brains?"

"Just trust me for now!" Thomas insisted. "Don't let him start a fight, okay?"

Gally glared furiously at him for a moment, then hauled Minho upright, twisting his arm up behind his back. "You better have a good explanation, Thomas."

Thomas had no explanation whatsoever for anything that was happening right now, so rather than answering he headed for the door again. Newt's eyes burned into him, but the blond boy stepped out of the doorway to let Thomas pass.

There, see? Thomas told himself. He didn't try to kill me. We're making progress.

Newt was glancing to his right as the though crossed Thomas' mind; as he came out of the doorway and turned that way, Thomas saw Winston moving toward them down the hallway. It wasn't Winston that had caught Newt's attention, though; it was Teresa.

She had an arm around Frypan's throat and a scalpel pressed under his chin, and was forcing him along in front of her as she stormed wrathfully toward them.

"Teresa!" Thomas started toward her, alarmed.

"Where is Chuck?" She barked.

"You know about Chuck?" Thomas questioned, bewildered.

She jerked harder on Frypan's neck. "Where is he?"

"Hey, take it easy, Teresa." Thomas began, but she only gave Frypan another jerk and shoved the scalpel harder against his throat. Thomas jumped back, throwing his hands up. "Hey, look, hey, slim it!"

Now she was shouting, shoving Frypan all the harder. "Where – is – Chuck!"

"Teresa?"

The other guys in the hallway pulled back as the younger boy's voice sounded behind them. Chuck had finally emerged from his room and was standing in the doorway, staring at the scene in front of him.

"All of you get back." Teresa snapped. Frypan wheezed; the arm she had around his neck was probably making it hard for him to breathe. Winston tried to speak up protestingly but Teresa's glare silenced him as she growled, "Chuck is going to walk past you all to come over to me and you're all going to stay just as far away from him as you possibly can, or I'll slit Frypan's throat."

Frypan gave a strangled groan at that, earning another jerk to the neck.

"Teresa!" Newt tried. "Frypan's on our buggin' side!"

"I know he's on your side!" She snapped. "And I'm going to kill him if you don't move and let Chuck through!"

As the younger boy was stepping forward, Gally emerged into the hallway, gripping a struggling Minho. He took in the scene quickly; a look of confused disbelief spread over his face. "Teresa? What are you doing?"

"Let him through!" She shouted.

"Get back, Gally, let Chuck get by." Thomas kept his voice level. His eyes flickered to Minho. "You okay?"

Minho's reply was nearly unintelligible, but it was something along these lines; "You shuckin' shuck-faced sh- _gahh_!" He broke off, agonized, as Gally wrenched on his twisted arm.

Chuck edged around them and moved toward Teresa, asking her nervously, "What's going on?"

"I don't know." She kept her eyes on the rest as she spoke to him.

"Teresa, listen, none of us know what's going on." Thomas told her. "We all just woke up here. I thought you were dead," He added after a pause.

"Bet you did." She snarled.

Frypan began to speak, but clammed up when Teresa forced the scalpel harder against his neck. Chuck reached her side and she returned her attention to the others. "Tell me how to get out of here."

"The only way out is the door." Thomas jerked a thumb toward the end of the hallway. "And it's locked."

"How do I get out?" Theresa shouted; Frypan yelped.

"Careful, Teresa, you're going to cut his throat!" Chuck exclaimed.

"We'd be better off for it!" She snapped.

"Are you jacked?" He protested. "What's she talking about, Winston?"

"The shuck you asking me for, slinthead?" Winston demanded. It was bizarre to hear his voice, after he'd been dead – or not, apparently – for so long.

For the moment, Thomas was glad they had no way to leave; given the way the other Gladers were acting, some of them might have tried to escape without the rest, given the chance. Of all the things that could have happened, Thomas thought that would have been the worst.

"Look, Teresa, I don't want you to hurt Fry." Thomas ventured, and added with a glance around at the others, "I don't want any of you getting hurt. I don't know what's wrong with your shuck brains, but we're all on the same side."

They all made it pretty obvious that they disagreed. Newt and Minho were both glaring bloody murder at him. Gally had his hands full with Newt, but he'd already made it pretty obvious he didn't trust some of these other guys. Teresa seemed to think they were all the bad guys except Chuck – whose thoughts seemed to be similar to hers.

Thomas was lost as to how to proceed from here. First things first, he had to talk Teresa out of slitting Frypan's throat. "Look, just – can we all – oh, shuck it."

He started pulling out the weapons he'd stashed in his clothes – scalpels, knives, and all manner of other dangerous-looking pieces. He tossed them all onto the floor between himself and Teresa. "Now I'm unarmed, okay? All the others are going to drop whatever they've got, too."

"Oh, please." Teresa snapped. "There are six of you and two of us."

"That means you and me, right?" Chuck muttered out the side of his mouth. "What about Fry and Winston?"

"They're with them." She growled, frowning sidelong at him. "You know that."

"What about Minho?" He demanded. "Who's he with?"

Teresa looked half angry that she had to explain all this and half confused as to why she had to give answers that should have been obvious. "He's with them."

"I thought he was dead."

"Teresa, let Frypan go." Newt spoke up again, eyeing Chuck like he was expecting the younger boy to pull a knife out of his sleeve and stab Teresa with it. "I don't know what you think is going on, but of all the bloody people whose throats you could cut, he's not the right one."

"Maybe I should try yours!" She snapped.

"Are you buggin'?" He demanded.

Thomas tried to regain control of the situation before things went even further downhill. "Guys, guys, guys, please, can we all just – "

"Shut up!" Newt and Teresa both shouted at him.

"No, listen!" He fired back. "I don't know where you left your shuck brains, but you're my best friends! Why are you acting like you don't know that?"

"You bloody slinthead!" Newt's face flushed angrily. "I can't believe you!"

From his position in the nearest doorway, where he had both feet planted and was resisting all Minho's efforts to break free, Gally called, "Give it a rest, Newt!"

"And you!" The blond boy swung toward him. "Why are you switching sides all of a sudden?"

"Guys!" Thomas barked. Teresa still had her blade pressed against Frypan's windpipe; he was afraid of what she might do if she thought the situation was slipping. "Please, guys, just – everyone calm down! Teresa, can you please just put down the knife and hear me out?"

"It's a scalpel," She corrected him coldly.

"Just put it down!" He repeated. "Please!" When she didn't budge, he cut his eyes to Chuck. "She seems to like you, man – you tell her."

Chuck returned his stare with a fierce, defiant glare, but he did say, "I think they're right, Teresa – if you're going to kill someone, kill one of them. Not Frypan."

Amid all his grunting and growling, Minho strained out a wry laugh. "Such kindness."

"Shut up," Gally jerked on his arm again; Minho bared his teeth in a snarl of pain.

"Slim it!" Thomas didn't know how to calm all these people down – everybody was at odds. It wasn't even like they were divided into two opposing groups, each hating the other; there were eight of them, and they all seemed to hate different people. Including himself.

"Look, guys, I don't know what to do." He pleaded. "But there's no way out of here, so how about we just all sit down somewhere and figure out what the shuck's going on?" He glanced toward Teresa. "We'll all stay over here – we won't come near you and Chuck. Just let Fry go, okay?"

She met his eyes with a hard glare for a long moment, then abruptly pulled her arm away from Frypan's neck and shoved him forward. He reeled out of her grip, gagging in air as his windpipe was finally freed. Winston caught him and pulled him back, eyeing Teresa warily.

Pointing her scalpel threateningly at the rest of them, Teresa snapped, "Someone better start explaining something fast."

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A/N: Thanks fadingshadows, The Maze Writer and UtilitarianShank for your reviews! You guys are the best! :D


	4. Chapter 4

Once again, Thomas was being asked for an explanation he didn't have. First he had to calm the rest of them down. Gally, at least, seemed to trust him, so he turned his attention elsewhere. "Newt, I get that you apparently hate me now, so you're not going to listen to me. But we've got to work something out here. Can you please just wait to kill me until we figure out what's going on?"

Newt fixed him with a loathing stare before saying coldly, "Fine."

Minho next, then. Thomas moved toward him and Gally, hands extended placatingly. "Dude, I don't know what's going on in your shuck head right now, but there's nowhere for you to escape to, so can you just wait before you try to bash in all our heads with your shucking crowbar?"

Minho didn't answer; he was still struggling against Gally's inexorable grip. Thomas shot a cautious glance at the older boy. "Just let him go. He knows there's no way out."

Angrily, Gally shoved Minho out into the hall, letting go of his arm. Minho spun around, obviously ready for a fight, but he wasn't stupid enough to try and start one.

Thomas glanced at Winston and Frypan. "Will you guys sit and listen, too?"

Winston nodded, earning a disbelieving stare from Frypan. After a moment, though, the cook gave an angry shrug. "Looks like everyone else is going to, so . . ."

"Fine. Can we sit down so it doesn't look like we're all about to attack each other again?" Thomas questioned hopefully. Nobody else moved, so he shook his head. "Suit yourselves. I trust you all, though, even though you don't trust me, so I'm sitting down."

He did so, putting his back against the wall and drawing his knees up in front of him, then glanced around at them. They were all glaring – some as if they hated him, others just as if he had really ticked them off. Great.

When Thomas didn't immediately speak, Teresa demanded, "Well?"

"Sorry." He shook his head. "I don't know what to say. I just – I don't know – I don't understand why you all are acting the way you are."

"You're the shank that was bloody waking the rest of us up." Newt growled. "But you expect us to believe you just woke up here a few minutes ago."

That was at least something he could argue about. "I have no idea what happened. I was with Minho and we ran through the flat trans, and then I was just – here, all of a sudden."

He glanced at Minho for backup, but the other boy scowled at him. "The shuck are you talking about?"

"We were – it was us and Brenda, and the building was collapsing, and we ran into the trans." Thomas pressed. "Gally, you went through right before we did."

"No idea what you're talking about." Gally was less aggressive than Minho, but his answer wasn't helpful.

Thomas glanced at Frypan. "You were there, too. You remember?"

The cook shook his head belligerently. Thomas turned toward Teresa, hoping against hope that she would be helpful. "We were fighting Jansen and the other WCKD people. We were trying to get the immunes through the flat trans. I killed Jansen. Then we were running and the ceiling was falling, and a big chunk of it was going to hit me." He paused. "You saved me. It killed you instead."

His heart sank as Teresa's expression grew even colder; she snapped, "Either you're crazy or you think I'm completely stupid."

"Well, that's how I got here!" Thomas told them all emphatically. "Minho and I ran through the flat trans and then all of a sudden I was cuffed to that table in there. How do you all think you got here?"

Nobody spoke. Thomas shook his head in frustration; it was hard to work with a bunch of people who inexplicably hated your guts. He glanced at Gally. "Help me out, here."

"You and me and Teresa were on the run." His glance flickered scathingly across the others. "They were hunting us down with WCKD. You got separated from us. Then Teresa and I were hiding in an old sewer tunnel . . ." He trailed off, frowning. "Then – then I was here, and you and Newt were fighting in the hallway."

Could that really be what Gally remembered? But he had been with Thomas – he had been there for the raid on WCKD and the escape and the fight . . .

"How about you?" Thomas glanced at Newt. "What do you remember?"

The blond boy glared back at him for a long moment; then his gaze shifted to Teresa as he said, directing his words at everybody, "None of your bloody business."

"Fine. Minho?"

The Glader in question had moved a few steps away from the rest of them and was standing warily. It took a long moment before he was willing to growl reluctantly, "You slintheads all know about me. I work for WCKD. Stop playing stupid shuck games."

"You work for WCKD?" Thomas couldn't believe what he was hearing. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was no way that was possible. "No you don't. Why would you say that?"

"You all know it!" Minho snapped. "Why do you want me to play dumb?"

"You can't work for WCKD." Thomas shook his head, then added to prove his point, "I don't just mean I know you wouldn't. Literally, you couldn't be. Everything you've done since we got out of the Maze wouldn't make any sense."

"I hunted you down!" Minho snapped irritably. "I turned your pony-loving butt over to WCKD!"

"No you didn't!" Thomas fired back.

Minho kicked the wall angrily. "I'm not playing your shuck games, Thomas!"

"Fine, whatever, just tell me how you ended up here."

He scuffed at the ground with his feet before saying, "I had Chuck and Frypan cornered in some shuck cave. That's the last thing I remember."

"We all think we got here different ways." Thomas stated, glancing from one face to another. "We can't all be right. But we've all been together ever since the Maze."

He paused, half expecting someone to counter that they had no idea what this Maze thing he was talking about was, but nobody did. Okay, so that much they all agreed on. The Maze had to have been real. He moved on. "When we got out of the Maze, Gally killed Chuck."

"What?" Gally demanded. "Obviously I didn't. There was this crazy scientist lady and she convinced all the others that WCKD was doing the right thing, testing us all. You and me and Teresa – " This with a nod in her direction " – didn't buy it; we fought our way out and ran for it."

"What the bloody shuck are you two on about?" Newt growled, aiming his words at Gally. "When we got out of the Maze we found out Thomas had been working for WCKD all along. Chuck decided to side with Thomas, and they were going to lock the rest of us up when you showed up and we all escaped. Then Minho sold us out – "

"Okay, so we all think different things happened after we got out of the Maze!" Thomas thought he might be beginning to understand what was really going on now. It just seemed so impossible that everything since the Maze hadn't been real, but that was his theory at the moment. "But we all agree on what happened before that, right? I came up in the box and then Teresa came up with the note that said she was the last one ever, and Ben got stung, and then Alby, and Minho and I survived a night in the Maze, and then the doors didn't close and the Grievers killed a lot of the other Gladers, and then Gally took over and was going to throw me and Teresa out, and then we escaped and headed for the exit Minho and I found, and Gally followed us?"

He studied all their faces; nobody objected, so he continued, "That much is real, then. You know those machines in there?" He nodded toward the nearest glass door as he spoke about the contraption on the other side of it. "They looked like they're meant to do something to your brain." He paused before continuing, knowing they wouldn't take easily to what he said next. "I don't think anything that happened to us after we left the Maze was real."

This was followed by an uproar of disagreement from all sides. Thomas waited a minute, but the shouting didn't die down, so he yelled over it, "I remember Gally shooting Chuck! Then Minho killed Gally with a spear!" They were quieting down, listening to him. He continued, "Winston, the cranks got you – you shot yourself before you went crazy. Newt, you . . ." He had to stop for a moment, hating the memory. "You got the Flare. I shot you." He felt like he should have explained that, but he just wanted to move on as quickly as he could. "Teresa, you died, like I said."

"None of that happened!" Teresa shouted angrily.

Her voice was nearly drowned out by Frypan's, Newt's and Gally's, all disagreeing loudly. Thomas hopped to his feet, trying to quiet them down again. "Everything you remember since we left the Maze is fake! All of it! They put it all in our heads so we wouldn't trust each other!"

"What I remember is bloody real." Newt growled over the heavy silence. "It's realer than what's happening right now."

"That's what I think about what I remember." Thomas told him, glancing around at the rest as he added, "We all think our version is real. But we can't all have it right." He made eye contact with Minho, hoping for a sign that he was making an impression. The other boy's expression was unreadable, though. Thomas continued, "We can't rely on anything we think we know that's based on what that happened after the Maze. That means anything we think about each other and about ourselves."

"Good that," Winston said aloud. Several heads turned toward him. He shrugged. "I believe Thomas. If they were just messing with our heads the whole time, it explains why you're all acting like shuck idiots."

"I think your brain's shucked," Gally announced, directing his words at Thomas. "But it looks like everyone else is in the same boat, too, so I'll play along for now."

There was a long pause, then Frypan decided, "I'm with Winston."

"Me too," Chuck spoke up, earning a disbelieving glare from Teresa.

"I'm going to kill you first bloody chance I get," Newt told Thomas harshly. "But it looks like I'm stuck with you till then, 'cause I'm sticking with Gally and Fry and Winston." He glanced sidelong at Teresa. "And Teresa, if she'll stop acting like I'm with you."

Teresa shot him a glare and said nothing. Gally ventured a couple of steps toward her, lowering his voice. "Try and trust me just a bit, Teresa?"

There was something in his voice that immediately caught Thomas' attention. Teresa's too, apparently, and it set her off. Her scalpel flashed out in front of her again and she pulled Chuck back a few steps, growling, "Stay away, Gally!"

He pulled up short, looking hurt – an expression Thomas wasn't used to seeing on Gally's face.

Suddenly the door at the end of the hallway swung open. All the Gladers spun around; a woman in a white coat stood staring at them in utter shock. For a couple of seconds nobody moved – then Newt was bounding past Minho toward her. She reacted a second later, jumping backward and pulling the door closed after her, but he caught the edge of it just before it closed.

The door slammed on his fingers and flew open again; he doubled over, clutching his hand in agony, but Thomas and Gally were already springing past him and leaping through the doorway before the woman could try to close it again. She bolted through another door and tried to slam it shut on them, but before she could Thomas crashed through it.

"Mike!" She yelled shrilly. "The kids are out!"

A voice shouted something nearby. Gally burst past Thomas, with a few of the others right on his heels. Thomas paused for a second to take stock of his surroundings. The door at the end of the hall had opened into a small, bare room with a single door immediately to the left after leaving the hallway. That was the one Thomas had just burst through, and it opened to a slightly larger room with lab coats, masks, boxes of plastic gloves, and one random full-body medical suit with a helmet, all hung along the walls.

The woman had taken off down the passageway which connected to this room. Thomas immediately saw that the passage was a short one; at the end of it was a door, through which the other Gladers were now disappearing. Thomas took off after them.

As he arrived, Winston and Frypan were grabbing the woman by the arms as she tried to escape through yet another door. A man had jumped up from a couch opposite a wall-mounted screen, only for Gally to punch him across the face hard enough to knock him down again.

Newt came panting in behind Thomas a moment later, still clutching the hand that had been slammed in the door. Frypan and Winston shoved the woman down on the couch beside the man as Gally spun around, looking for a weapon.

Thomas grabbed a solid little brass eagle figure off the shelf above the TV and tossed it to Gally, who caught and immediately swung toward the two people on the couch. "What is this shuck place?"

* * *

A/N: Thoughts? How am I doing with keeping them all in character?

Thanks CreativeWriter, Ihni, and UtilitarianShank (again :D) for reviewing! You guys are the best! I'll update tomorrow. :)


	5. Chapter 5

The man and woman exchanged a glance. Gally wasn't wasting time; he slammed the woman back and bore down on her, lifting the statue to bring it down on her head.

"It's a research station!" The man shouted.

Gally let go of the woman's shirt and turned his glare on the man. "How did we get here?"

"You've been here for several weeks now. Maybe a few months." He shrugged, his eyes darting from one Glader to another.

"How did we _get_ here?" Gally snapped.

"They airlifted you in." The woman spoke up.

"From where?"

"We don't know." She shook her head, then added quickly, "We're just the base team. All we do is monitor you guys. They don't tell us anything."

"That's what they all say," Frypan commented acerbically.

Thomas saw movement in his peripheral vision, and then suddenly the man was surging up, shouting, "Hit the alarm, Todd! Hit the alarm!"

Then Gally was punching him again, hurling him back onto the couch, and Thomas was leaping after the boy who he had seen in the corner of his eye as the boy spun and dashed back in the direction he'd appeared from. He skidded around a corner, through a doorway, across a room – then rounding another corner he found himself in a dark room with a bank of screens suspended around a desk of sorts.

The boy slammed into the table and flipped up a transparent plastic hatch next to the console. Thomas grabbed the back of his shirt to drag him away from the table as his hand came down on the button under the hatch and an alarm blasted out on all sides.

Red lights were flashing. The word 'LOCKDOWN' was blinking on all the screens, which Thomas noted in the back of his head were displaying footage from the rooms he and the others had been unconscious in.

Then he was throwing the boy back and swinging a fist at his face. The boy stopped the blow with both hands, only to get a knee in the gut. He doubled over in pain but drove forward, shouldering into Thomas and slamming him into the table.

Winston appeared in the doorway, grabbing the guy's shoulders and heaving him back. Thomas hit him across the face, once, twice –

Then Winston crumpled with a cry of surprise and pain and a girl appeared behind him, the crowbar she had hit him with illuminated by the flashing red lights. She grabbed the guy Thomas had been pummeling by the shoulder, pulling him to her side before handing him the crowbar and whipping a twelve-inch knife out from the back of her belt to point it at Thomas as he scrabbled across the desk behind him for a weapon. "Hey, hey, cool it!"

"Who the shuck are you people?" He demanded hotly.

"Keep your shirt on, kid!" She snapped.

Gally's face loomed into the flashing red lights behind her; before she had realized he was there his arms shot over her shoulders and grabbed her wrist, pulling her own knife back against her throat. The guy spun toward him, crowbar upraised, but Gally jerked the girl around in front of him as she clawed furiously at his arm. "Drop it! Drop it now, slinthead!"

The boy dropped the crowbar after only a second of hesitation. Thomas grabbed it up off the ground and pulled a groggy Winston upright to bring up the rear as Gally dragged the girl back toward the room with the couch and Thomas prodded the boy along behind him.

He took in the situation as he entered the room. Newt and Frypan were standing over the man and woman on the couch, Frypan armed with the brass eagle statue. Teresa and Chuck were hanging back in the doorway that led toward the hall they had been locked into, watching every move the others made with wary eyes.

"Sit them over there, on the floor." Gally told Thomas, nodding toward the wall perpendicular to the couch. He spun the girl around as if to shove her down, but she fought back, twisting one hand free of his grip and nailing him in the nose with her fist.

Thomas tossed the crowbar to Winston, who was fully recovered by now, and went to Gally's aid. He was just in time, too; the girl twisted her knife hand free by jerking it back as Gally's grip weakened from her blow. Her arm shot up into the air from the force of the jerk, and Thomas grabbed it before she could bring it back down, shoving it up and body-slamming her backward. He managed to pin her arm up against the wall, rendering her knife useless.

She head-butted him in the mouth and he recoiled, barely managing to keep her hand pinned up. They struggled for a moment before he got his elbow against her windpipe and leaned against it just enough to make her stop fighting back. Breathing heavily, he told her, "Slim it and sit down."

She didn't put up as much of a fight as he had expected; she relinquished her grip on the knife and slid down the wall until she was sitting with her knees drawn up in front of her. Thomas turned, aware that Newt's glare was following him all the more closely now that he had the knife in hand. He pointed it at the boy who'd set off the alarm. "You sit, too."

As the guy obeyed, Thomas glanced around at the other Gladers. "Everyone find a weapon. The bars from the IV stands back in the rooms we woke up in are good."

"I want the buggin' knife." Newt spoke abruptly. "I don't trust you with it."

They locked eyes for a second. Thomas gave in; he was willing to do just about anything to regain Newt's trust. "Fine. Take it."

Newt did so, then glanced at Teresa. "If I give this to you will you bloody trust me?"

"It would be a start," She growled noncommittally.

"Here." He held it out, hilt first, and moved cautiously toward her until he was just within reach. She took the knife and withdrew quickly, holding it at the ready – not openly aggressive toward them, which was an improvement, at least, but obviously ready to defend herself at the slightest provocation.

Gally's eyes had followed the whole interaction with that funny expression he'd had earlier. Thomas decided not to read into it too much; he might be imagining things.

Leaving the four prisoners with Winston, Frypan and Teresa – and Chuck, who Teresa refused to let out of her sight – the others returned to the hallway they'd been locked into to find weapons. A minute later they had armed themselves with scalpels and IV poles and were all returning to the room with the couch except – Thomas glanced around. "Where's Minho?"

"Haven't seen him since we came chasing after these shanks," Gally stated.

"Alright, you all try not to kill each other. I'm going to go find him." Thomas headed for the empty room that attached to the hallway. They had been going in and out the door directly to the left of the hallway door, but there was a door directly to its right, as well. It was the only place Minho could have gone, since he couldn't have gotten around the rest of them to go down the passage toward the roomful of camera feeds without being noticed.

The door opened into darkness; Thomas felt for a light switch and found one. Two overhead bulbs flickered on, revealing the largest room Thomas had seen so far. It was narrow, like all the rest, but unlike them it was long, extending to his right. It didn't look big, since it was packed full of storage containers and plastic barrels and all kinds of junk that was probably important.

This had to be where Minho was; there was no other door out of this room. Thomas moved into the room cautiously, calling, "Minho?"

No answer.

"Hey, dude, I get that you don't trust me. This is probably most confusing of all for you because you don't trust any of us. The rest of us all think we have someone on our side – even Teresa's got Chuck. You think we're all the bad guys."

He waited again before continuing, "But listen, man, you can't believe anything you think based on what happened after the Maze. You and me were friends in the Maze; that's all we can go on."

Still nothing.

"I trust you, even if you don't trust me." Thomas kept at it. "The only way we're going to make it out of here is if we all work together. We caught four people that are running this whole thing, and I think you should hear what they have to tell us."

When there was still nothing from Minho, Thomas announced, "So, what I'm going to do is, I'm going to throw my weapons over here – " His bar and scalpel clattered to the floor several feet further into the room. "And I'm gonna tie my hands up with this thing – " He pulled a bungee cord loose from the wall, sending the white package it had been holding up tumbling to the floor.

With another glance around as he wrapped the bungee cord as tightly as he could around his own wrists, Thomas added, "Now I'm getting down on the ground here, and you can use me as a hostage so the others don't try to pull a fast one on you."

He lowered himself to his hands and knees and stared at the floor, trying not to give in to the fear eating at his insides. Minho obviously really did believe he was working against Thomas and all the other Gladers for WCKD. Who's to say he wouldn't just kill Thomas now?

It crossed his mind that it would suck to be killed by your best friend. Then something else occurred to him that made his heart collapse in on itself – that was basically what had happened to Newt.

Then Minho's hands were hauling him up and the scalpel was digging into his throat under his chin. "You try and pull any klunk on me and I'll rip that pretty shuck face of yours off, even if the others get me afterward."

"I won't," Thomas promised breathlessly, tense as the blade bit against his skin. "I'm not trying to trick you."

Minho kept the scalpel in place with one hand, hooking the other arm over Thomas' shoulder and around his neck so he couldn't get away. Then he jerked him around and started pushing him toward the door. "Move."

They got through the empty room and into the room with all the lab coats and medical gear. As they started down the short hallway toward the room with the couch, Teresa spun around, her knife at the ready. Thomas called quickly, "It's okay, don't do anything, just let us through!"

Teresa and Chuck backed away and Minho shoved Thomas into the room. Gally had been crouched in front of the boy and girl sitting against the wall, he sprang to his feet as they appeared, but Thomas warned again, "Slim it, Gally, it's okay! I told him he could use me as a hostage so you all wouldn't try anything."

"Somebody better tell me what's going on," Minho growled, "or this shank's gonna be shucked for good."

Thomas lifted his bungee-corded hands to point at the man sitting on the couch. "Tell him what you told us."

"About what?"

"How we got here."

"They airlifted you in a few months ago." The man explained again.

"Why don't we remember being here all that time, then?" Newt challenged him.

The woman spoke up. "When they brought you in you were unconscious. Then they hooked you up to the sim machines and those have been running your brains ever since."

"So everything we remember since the Maze is fake?" Gally demanded with a glance at Thomas.

"I don't know what the Maze is," The woman said cautiously. "But all your memories from the past several weeks – those are all fake."

"Why should I believe that?" Minho yanked on Thomas; the scalpel dug harder against his windpipe and he stiffened. "How do I know they're not with you slintheads and you're trying to pull something stupid on me?"

The seed of doubt had been planted, though, and it showed in Minho's tone. Now there were other things Thomas had to know right away. Keeping as still as he could against Minho's grip, he cut his eyes toward the boy sitting on the floor against the wall. "That alarm you set off. What does it do?"

"It alerts headquarters that something's gone wrong," The woman on the couch was the one to answer. "They'll be on the way here now."

"How long will it take them to get here?" He asked sharply.

The hesitation to answer was palpable, but the man said after a pause, "A couple of hours by aircraft."

* * *

A/N: How am I doing keeping them all in character? I'm having a hard time balancing the different dynamic with the way they usually interact in the books/movie. Let me know. :)

Also, not to sound redundant, but to the Tezzerax and zb2334, thanks for reviewing. :D And to Creativewriter, the Maze Writer and UtilitarianShank, thanks again! I'm so lucky to already have returning reviewers even though the story is just getting started. (apologizing in advance for the pun I'm about to make.. I couldn't help myself) You guys are a-maze-ing! :)

I'm going to be good about updating regularly for the next few days, so you'll definitely see the next chapter tomorrow. Once school starts up again, though, I can't make any promises. I'll do my best. Just a heads up.


	6. Chapter 6

"By aircraft?" Teresa spoke up. "Why would they put us at a little base like this so far away?"

Thomas understood her question – what she meant was, why would test subjects as important as the eight of them be left at a relatively unsecure location that couldn't be quickly reached by reinforcements? – but the four prisoners didn't seem to; the man answered, "This is their safest base; it's the only one too far out to be attacked."

"Attacked?" Frypan echoed.

"By the half-cranks," The woman told him. "The people that are infected enough to want to bring the rest of humanity down with them, but not too sick to figure out how to do it."

At all their bewildered looks, she explained, "They know WCKD is trying to find a Cure. None of our research facilities but this one are safe from them."

"Then why isn't this one more secure?" Minho demanded. "Why are there only four of you and no security systems?"

"We aren't supposed to need more security or staff," The man told him. "You all weren't supposed to wake up. We don't even bother to monitor your security feeds most of the time. Something must have gone really wrong with the system."

Thomas' mind had fastened onto something else entirely. He raised his voice. "So the cranks are real? And WCKD is searching for a Cure? That's all real?"

A few puzzled glances turned his way; he explained, "All that stuff came after the Maze. I figured that would just be in my fake memories."

"It was in mine, too." Chuck spoke up.

Frypan nodded. "And mine."

"Same," Gally agreed.

The others were all nodding, or at least not voicing disagreement. Okay, so there was some common basis to the different memories they all had. Keenly aware that time was precious but itching for answers, Thomas ventured, "Do you all remember the Flare, too? And we're immune? And WCKD is testing us to try and find a Cure?"

More nods. Thomas couldn't help glancing at Newt. "And – you're immune, too?"

The blond boy scowled. "'Course I'm bloody immune."

"We need to get out of here." Gally reminded them all tautly.

"You can't," The man on the couch told him.

Gally's jaw tightened. "I don't like shanks telling me what I can't do."

"There's no way to leave," The man insisted. "They airlifted us in here to staff the place, and the only way to leave is by getting airlifted back out."

"Door's down the hall, through the control room and to the left," The woman spoke up.

The Gladers all glared at her for a moment, uncertain as to why she would tell them that. Gally nodded to Frypan. "Go check it out."

"I ain't doing jack you tell me." The cook retorted. "I don't care what Thomas says, I still don't trust you."

"Would somebody just go take a shuck look?" Thomas demanded, wheezing a bit against Minho's arm, still tightly wrapped around his neck. "We don't have all day!"

"I'll go," Winston offered as he started off in the direction of the control room.

Frypan watched him go for a couple of seconds, then rolled his eyes in exasperation and followed. "I'm coming too."

There was a long pause as their footsteps moved away. A few indistinct thumps and bangs – then suddenly a blast of sound and a rush of air so cold and powerful that it hit everybody in the couch room as if they had been standing right in front of the door when it opened.

Over the sound of the wind, Thomas could hear Frypan shouting, "Close it! Close the shuck thing!"

Then the noise was cut off and the loud bang of a latch closing sounded. A moment later Fry and Winston were back, their hair and clothes dusted in snow.

Winston was the one that reported, "It's a shuck blizzard out there. Never felt anything so cold in my life."

"A blizzard?" Thomas repeated. That was the last thing he'd been anticipating – if anything, his subconscious expectation had been of something more along the lines of the Scorch. He shook his head. "Fine, a blizzard. We'll just have to deal with it; we've got to get out of here before WCKD shows up."

"It's not that easy!" The woman snapped. "You can't just walk out of here! Nobody can survive out there!"

"Heard that one before," Thomas grunted.

"So we're all going, then?" Gally questioned, glancing around. "Even though none of us trust each other?"

There was a moment of silence before Chuck piped up, "I'd rather take the chance that you all aren't lying for some crazy shuck reason than sit around waiting for WCKD."

"Agreed," Frypan sighed. Winston nodded.

Newt shrugged, then fixed his glare on Thomas. "I'm still going to kill you, Tommy boy."

Thomas would have answered, but he was trying not to say more than he had to; Minho's grip seemed to be restricting his airflow more and more as time passed. He tapped his bound hands against Minho's arm. "How 'bout you?"

The other boy jostled him, keeping the scalpel pressed to his neck. "I don't trust any of you shuck-faces." He paused. "I don't think those four are with you, though, or they wouldn't be acting like they are. So I don't see why they'd lie."

Abruptly he pulled the scalpel back and pushed Thomas away. "I'm going to play your shuck games for now, but I'm still not falling for any of your pretty-boy klunk."

"Good that," Thomas felt his spirits rise. This was the least unfriendly Minho had been since waking up. Progress!

Gally was glancing at Teresa, and once again Thomas was sure he saw that something in the bigger boy's eyes as Gally asked, "What about you? What are you going to do?"

"I'm not letting Chuck go running off by himself." She informed him coldly. "Especially not with you guys. I'm coming."

"You can't just leave!" The woman on the couch raised her voice again. "You don't get it! Nobody just wanders around out there! You don't even know where you are!"

"Maybe we need someone who does, then." Gally growled.

"Good idea," Newt agreed.

Thomas nodded. "We could use a guide."

"You're all crazy," The boy sitting on the floor against the wall sneered.

"Did I hear you volunteer?" Gally grabbed him by the shirt and hauled him to his feet.

"Not on your life!" He snapped. "You might as well kill me now – I'd die if I went out there with you lot, anyway."

"I can arrange that," Gally snarled, spinning the bar in his hand and bringing it back for a head blow.

"I'll go with you."

The girl sitting against the wall hadn't said a word all this time; hearing her voice now stopped them all short. The guy jerked around in Gally's grip to stare furiously at her. "Shut up!"

"No," She retorted. "If they want a guide, I'll be their guide."

"That's a suicide mission!" He exclaimed.

"They'll just kill us all if one of us doesn't do it, anyway." She snapped. "This way only one of us dies instead of all four!"

"Now that's a girl who knows her math," Minho remarked sarcastically.

Despite the urgent timetable they were on, Thomas took a second to study the girl. Initially he'd thought she was older, maybe in her twenties, because she had called him "kid." Now, though, he didn't think she was that much older than he was. He spoke over the others. "What's your name?"

She lifted her chin. "Cody."

"How old are you?"

"Nineteen."

He raised his eyebrows. "Why's someone your age working at this extra-important secret base?"

"I'm kind of an intern."

"Right, I don't know what that is." Thomas shrugged, glancing at Gally. "Well, she volunteered, I think you can put that shank down now."

Gally gave the boy a flying shove that ended with him halfway to the ground, slamming into the wall and dropping the rest of the way to where he had been sitting before as all the air was driven out of his lungs. Gally reached for the girl to pull her upright, but the guy lashed out, catching his arm and hurling his body against him in an effort to knock him down.

He may have been older, but he was no match for Gally; it was only a moment before he was flat on the ground with Gally's knee between his shoulder blades and the boy's bar pressed across the back of his neck, forcing his face into the floor.

The girl – Cody – jumped to her feet. "Leave him alone or I'm not coming."

"Oh, you're coming." Gally growled.

"Slim it, Gally, let him up." Thomas interjected, then told the other Gladers, "There's a storage room back through this way. Grab some warm clothes and whatever supplies you can find and let's get out of this place."

"I'll stay and keep an eye on these slintheads," Gally said with a nod to the prisoners as he shifted his weight off the guy and allowed him to get up.

Thomas held his bungee-corded hands out to Minho. "Help me out, here?"

With a glare, the other boy loosened the cord enough for Thomas to pull his hands free. He turned toward Cody. "Great, now you're coming with me and showing me where you shanks keep your weapons. Real weapons, not these shuck things," He added with a nod to the others' bars and scalpels.

"We don't have weapons," She told him.

"Think I'm stupid?" He growled. "That's your shuck knife Teresa's got, there. Of course you have weapons."

"That's mine – it's not standard issue," She tried to explain, but Thomas was already pulling her toward the control room. "The others don't have those."

"There are always weapons," He snapped.

The other Gladers were heading in the direction of the storage room, with Minho bringing up the rear warily. Newt, however, was following Thomas; in answer to a questioning glance, the blond boy shrugged aggressively. "If you think I'm letting you get your hands on a bunch of guns and knives, you're bloody jacked."

"Good that." Thomas was keeping his eyes on Cody, rather expecting her to try and pull something on them. He gave her a bit of a push as they reached the control room. "So you gonna show me where the weapons are or do I have to find them myself?"

She took a moment to answer. "Find them yourself."

"Fine," Thomas gritted, shoving her angrily into the room. There was something about her that reminded him of Teresa just enough to make him think he wouldn't be able to get anything out of her if she hadn't spilled it already.

This room was where weapons would probably be stored. In the dim lighting from the computer screens, he scanned the walls. Most likely, they wouldn't even be concealed.

Newt was already heading for a black cabinet built into the right-hand wall of the room. Steering Cody along by the elbow, Thomas followed.

When the cabinet refused to open, Newt gave the lock a few well-aimed blows with the end of his bar. Something broke and it drifted open; the blond boy grabbed it and swung it the rest of the way, revealing four handguns plugged into black cords which attached to the wall.

Newt pulled one free, weighing it in his hands and switching off the safety mechanism. "These things loaded?"

"Yes, but they're stun – "

Whatever the rest of that sentence was, Thomas didn't hear it; Newt spun around and shot him in the head and everything went dead.

* * *

A/N: Sorry I'm updating late. I had a crazy day. Once again, thanks to the Tezzerax, fadingshadowss, and CreativeWriter for leaving me those reviews! Also to Emma. :)

Any thoughts on what just happened with Newt? Pretty crazy right? :)

I'll try and post tomorrow. This Saturday I have a big event at school and we're spending a large part of every day till then at school working, so if I have a chance to post tomorrow it will be pretty late.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: I feel the need to warn you guys, this is the longest chapter so far because the second part is all about them going through supplies and dividing them up. I thought about saving a couple of pages by leaving that stuff out but I decided to keep it because there's a lot of interaction among the Gladers throughout that part and I think that's important to the story, given the situation of not trusting each other they're in. Just a heads up.

* * *

Thomas rolled over with a slow groan. Where was he? What had –

Recollection hit him and he jumped up unsteadily, gasping in air as he tried to focus on his surroundings. It took a second for his vision to come into focus and reveal Gally and Newt crashing back and forth around the room, smashing and knocking things over as they pounded each other to a pulp.

Thomas' head was still spinning; he shouted at them to stop but to no avail. Blood was streaming down Gally's face from a gash across the left side of his forehead, but as Thomas watched he got enough arm room to slug Newt in the eye so hard that the smaller boy was thrown back hard, crashing through one of the suspended screens and landing on his back halfway atop the desk. He instantly went to jump up again, but Gally gave him a shove that slammed him back down even harder, pulling back his fist for another blow.

Then Minho was there with a flying kick that sent Gally crashing through the computer screens and reeling into the wall. Newt and Gally both surged up, but Minho had somehow gotten his hands on the gun Newt had shot Thomas with. He bounded backward, putting space between them so he could shoot before either boy could reach him if they tried to attack and bellowing, "Don't move! Don't shucking move or I'll blow your jacked heads off!"

Thomas was recovering now; he took a couple of steps along the wall, bringing him to the weaponry cabinet, which still hung open. Minho eyed him as he moved but didn't try and turn the gun on him.

The other three guns were still plugged in inside the cabinet. Thomas pulled two out, taking care to hold them by the muzzles so Minho didn't get the wrong idea and try to shoot him. With a glance at Cody, who was lurking tensely in the corner, where she must have taken refuge when Newt shot Thomas, he questioned, "How long was I out for?"

"Minute and a half." She answered tautly.

"Guys, listen, these aren't real guns." Thomas told the others. "They're just stunners."

"Too bad," Newt spat.

What had just happened finally fully sank in for Thomas and he gaped at Newt. "You shot me in the head!"

"Yeah, bet you didn't like being on the other side of that!" The blond boy snarled. Gally's fists tightened but he shot a glance at Minho, who still had his gun ready, and stayed put.

Thomas shook his head helplessly and just decided to move on. He glanced at Cody. "These things plug in so I assume they have to charge up to shoot. How many shots do you get before you have to recharge?"

She looked like she was trying to decide whether to answer, then said, "Five."

"Then we should save them up for when we need them," Thomas stated with a pointed glance at the others. "Newt, if I give you one of these, can you not shoot me?"

"No buggin' promises," The blond boy snapped.

Thomas shook his head again and tossed one of the guns across the room. Newt caught it and instantly had it trained on Minho. The two of them stared each other down, fingers tight on the triggers. Thomas tossed the other gun to Gally, who immediately brought it up and took aim at Newt.

"Are you bloody kidding me, Gally?" The blond boy demanded angrily at the same time as Minho swung to point his gun at Gally, turning them into a triangle.

Thomas pulled the fourth handgun from the cabinet and jerked his head at Cody. "Come on."

It was only then that he realized most of the other Gladers had been watching the facedown from the doorway. As Thomas turned toward them, they drew back, most of them eying his gun. He rolled his eyes in exasperation; he was already so tired of the distrust between them all. "One of you can have it. Who wants it?"

"Give it to me," Teresa said quickly.

"You've already got that shuck knife!" Frypan protested.

"Here, Fry." Thomas tossed the gun at the cook, who caught it and shoved it into his belt with a glare. Thomas pulled Cody through their midst and back along the hallway in the direction of the storage room. "We need to get out of here, you guys! Can't we live with each other enough to do that?"

A minute later he reached the storage room and the others filtered in behind him. Thomas nodded to them, trying not to set any of them off by sounding like he was telling them what to do. "How about we dig out anything useful we find and throw it in the empty room back there, then we can sort it all out and pack it up."

Winston nodded; the others were less friendly, but they did as he suggested. Food packs, water containers, heavy clothing, boots – anything they could find that might be helpful, they tossed through the doorway into the adjoining room.

It was a minute before Newt and Minho appeared, darting angry looks at each other; Gally must have returned to guarding the other three prisoners. They had put their guns away, at least, and they pitched in to help, although with the expected amount of suspicious glares.

Digging through a bin of coats, Thomas shot a sidelong look at Cody. "You live around here. Do you know how to survive in this environment?"

"You can't." She responded shortly, then relented and added, "But they gave us a training course, just in case."

"So what should we be packing?" Thomas questioned. Maybe it was stupid to ask – she wasn't on their side – but she didn't seem like a bad person, and he figured that since they were taking her with them her best bet at making it alive was to do what she could to help them.

"Most important thing, short term, is what you wear," Cody told him. "You want good, waterproof boots and gloves, a hat and hood and a heavy scarf or mask."

"You guys hear?" Thomas called to the others.

"Yeah," Chuck grumbled.

"Why should we do what she says?" Newt demanded.

Thomas, feeling like Newt's problem was more with him than with Cody, shrugged. "Do what you want. I'm using her ideas, though; she sounds like she knows what she's talking about, and none of us have a clue."

The girl ventured to point to a rack of coats suspended overhead. "You're going to want to wear those. They're pretty lightweight but they keep you a lot warmer than most heavier coats can."

Frypan boosted Winston up to unhook the entire rack and drop it to the floor. Teresa and Chuck gathered nine of the coats – there were twelve, which Thomas initially took to mean that three had been provided for each member of the base team. Then it occurred to him that eight of them were probably for the Gladers, in case the base lost power or heat or something.

"If you're dead set on getting as far away from here as possible, you'll need to take those." Cody pointed to a stack of long, flattish things with upturned edges.

Newt picked one up and examined it dubiously. "What are they?"

"Sleds," She explained patiently. "People used to use them for fun. WCKD adapted them for efficiency in case we needed to travel out here; they're lightweight, too, and they'll save you a lot of energy on a downhill slope."

"There are only four," Newt criticized, stacking his back on top of the others and lifted them all out into the other room.

"We're only supposed to need four," Cody told him, then amended, "Well, we're not supposed to _need_ them at all. They're just a contingency."

"What else should we take?" Thomas questioned.

"Well, you're going to need shelter when it gets dark." She lifted her eyebrows. "Even you all wouldn't be stupid enough to try and stay out in the open at night around here."

"So is there a tent or something?" Winston asked.

Cody gave a half-laugh. "No. You have to dig a shelter in the snow."

"Go figure."

"What do we need for that?" Thomas got her back on track, keenly aware of every wasted second. He'd hoped to be gone already.

"Those." She pointed to a set of wide, short-handled shovels hanging from hooks down the wall by the door.

"Again, only four," Newt observed.

Cody ignored him and continued with a nod to another shelf, "I'd take an axe or two, as well. And rope. And lights. Oh, and it's really important to have something to start a fire with."

"Something like?" Thomas prompted.

"There's a box of strikers there," She indicated the box in question amid all the junk piled against the wall behind her, then pointed to the back wall. "And there are fuel blocks in the crates stacked back there; you'll need as many of those as you can carry."

As the others lifted a few of the crates out into the other room, along with all the other things Cody had pointed out, Thomas asked, "What about food?"

"We have an emergency stash of MRE's, but most of our supplies aren't condensed. They take up a lot of space."

"Fine," Thomas nodded, then hesitated before asking, "What's an MRE?"

Cody gracefully refrained from looking amused. "It means meal ready to eat. It's basically condensed nutrition."

"Where are those?" Thomas glanced around.

"Food storage is back that way," She told him, pointing over her shoulder.

"Take us there." Thomas nudged her toward the door, taking care not to be as pushy as he had been a few minutes ago. She was being nice, helping them – he didn't want to screw that up.

It was several minutes before they had carted back the box of MRE's and a large amount of what Cody said were the next best foods to pack. In addition, they had nine water canteens and a black metal container which Cody had told them was specifically meant for the purpose of melting down snow to drink.

While the others had been collecting all that, Newt and Gally had tied up the other three prisoners so nobody needed to guard them and everyone could pitch in to divide up the supplies as quickly as possible.

Once they were all assembled in the formerly empty room where they had dumped all their potential supplies, Thomas cautiously ventured to take charge again. "Okay, so we've only got four shovels and four sleds. Since there are eight of us, plus her – " this with a nod at Cody " – I say we divide into pairs; one person from each pair gets a shovel and the other gets a sled."

Gally nodded agreement and turned toward Teresa – just as she said, "Fine. I'm with Chuck."

Thomas didn't miss the hurt that flashed in Gally's eyes and the tightening of Newt's jaw, but he didn't want to waste time. "Let's try and make the different pairs people who both trust each other to save – uh, tension. And one from each pair should get one of the guns, as well."

Frypan and Winston were the next two to pair off. Then Gally spoke up with a glance at Minho and Newt, "Well, I don't trust either of these slintheads." He nodded to Thomas. "I'm with you."

"Fine," Thomas nodded agreement. "Minho, Newt, that puts you two shanks together."

The two shot each other suspicious glares. Minho was the first to speak. "I'm not giving up my gun. You'll have to give yours to someone else, if we're following shuck-face here's one gun per pair rule."

"Give it to Chuck," Thomas suggested carefully. "He and Teresa are the only pair without a gun."

"I don't trust Chuck with this bloody thing," Newt snapped. "I'll give it to Teresa."

"She's already got the knife," Frypan protested.

"Then we can trade," Newt said decisively. "She gets the gun, I get the knife."

"Fair," Thomas agreed. Teresa looked none too happy to be handing over her knife, but she evidently preferred the gun.

Gally cleared his throat. "We've got less than an hour and a half now, so it would be great if we could do this already and get the shuck out of here."

"Sled or shovel?" Thomas glanced at Gally. "Take your pick."

"Shovel," The bigger boy reached for the tool without hesitation.

"I'll take the sled, then." Thomas pulled it toward him. The other pairs quickly split up their sleds and shovels, then turned their attention back to the jumble of supplies on the floor.

"Everyone gets one of these, obviously," Teresa spoke up, kicking at the heap of gray backpacks they had pulled from the storage room. "We'll need them for everything else."

"Right." Thomas pulled one of the packs toward him, and tossed one to Cody as an afterthought. "We should probably figure out clothes first thing."

"Well, there are plenty extra of these to go around," Newt picked up one of the many pairs of boots, tied together by their laces, that he had dug out of the storage room a few minutes ago. "Anyone know your shoe size?"

The others shook their heads. Newt grimaced. "Well, they're all different sizes. I guess we'll just have to see which fit who."

"Give me the biggest ones," Gally told him. "I have big feet."

Newt slung a pair across the room to him. "These work?"

The bigger boy grunted assent. It took a couple of minutes for the rest to find pairs that worked for them all, but eventually everyone was satisfied. They each also took a coat, a pair of gloves, two pairs of socks, a hat, a scarf, and what Cody called an undersuit – basically waterproof, insulated pants.

At Cody's insistence, they spent a few minutes going through a heap of clothes until each had at least two layers to wear under their coats.

Then they each took two fire starters – one for their packs, and one to keep in their pockets in case they lost their packs. Minho took the lid off the crate of fuel blocks and scowled down at its contents before pulling out a blackish cube the size of his fist that left dark smudges on his fingertips. "The shuck is this thing?"

"It's a fuel block," Cody explained. "One of those burns for three or four hours – it's as good as a fire and makes way less smoke. Plus it won't eat up your oxygen like a normal fire. You're not going to find much else out there that you'll be able to burn; you want to pack as many of these as possible."

"How long is it going to take us to get through whatever winter wonderland is out there?" Minho questioned.

She answered slowly, "Theoretically, a month."

"Theoretically?" Gally demanded.

Cody glanced his way. "Nobody gets through this region on foot. It's called an arctic wasteland for a reason."

"Whatever," Minho shrugged. "So if it's a month, and they burn three hours each, we'll probably need three a night. That's ninety of these shuck things."

"Ten each," Teresa observed.

"You and Cody here should start a club for mathematical geniuses," Minho commented caustically.

"We should probably pack more to be safe," Frypan spoke up. "You never know what might go wrong. I say we each take fifteen."

Thomas nodded. "As long as we can still fit enough food and everything else."

Gally glanced down at the watch he must have taken from a member of the base team. "We've got an hour and twenty minutes till WCKD shows up."

"Let's split up the food," Thomas said quickly. "We should take all of these MRE things. There are fifty in the box, so . . ."

Teresa opened her mouth, then closed it again with a glare in Minho's direction. Thomas shrugged. "That means five each, plus a few extras."

Minho didn't bother to make a smart comment about Thomas' amazing math skills. Instead, he questioned, "Who gets the extras?"

"Well, there are five left over, so how about one for each pair and one for Cody?"

"Why should she get an extra one?" Chuck demanded.

"Because otherwise the rest of us have to argue over which pair should get two and which should only get one," Thomas tried to keep the irritation out of his voice.

"Okay, fine, moving on." Gally said impatiently.

* * *

A/N: there is is. And now I want to warn you all, my updates are likely to become pretty sporadic pretty fast. I've kind of had a break recently to work on all this but now life's getting back to full-time crazy. I really will do my best, and honestly, getting reviews on my fanfics really motivates me to keep working on them. So if you want to read more soon, review! :)

I'll try to update tomorrow - I've already written the next chapter so I should at least be able to make time to post it. After that update, all bets are off. :P


	8. Chapter 8

They split the other food supplies evenly; mostly protein bars and dried or canned food. Then they distributed a random selection of other things: a can opener, two compasses, a few spoons and kitchen knives, a small aluminum skillet, the snow melter, a coil of rope, two collapsible axes, five flashlights and a handful of extra batteries, and a first aid kit.

Everyone also took a tightly rolled blanket. A dispute arose over the four switchblade knives Chuck had found, but Winston solved it by proposing that the four Gladers who didn't have guns should each get a knife.

That sparked a debate over whether Newt should be allowed to have both the twelve-inch knife they had taken from Cody and a switchblade. Eventually he opted to let Teresa have his switchblade in addition to her gun and to keep the long knife. Cody handed over the knife's back-of-the-belt sheath, and Newt added it to his pile of gear.

Finally, as Gally impatiently told them they only had an hour left, Thomas glanced at Cody. "Anything else?"

She shook her head. "There's plenty of other important stuff, but this is what you need if you're travelling light."

"Light?" Minho lifted his eyebrows at the huge heap of gear piled up beside him. "You call this travelling light?"

"There's one other thing that might be helpful," Cody said hesitantly. "Can I just . . . ?" She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the storage room.

"I'll come," Thomas muttered.

A minute later they were back with four pairs of snowshoes. Thomas glanced around at the others. "I guess it should be one of these per pair, too."

"And we should take turns, because the people without them will get worn out really fast," Frypan observed.

"Good that," Newt agreed.

"Okay, let's see what brilliant shank can figure out how the shuck we're supposed to carry all this," Minho remarked helpfully.

They managed to fit all the food and the other supplies into their backpacks, or into the various exterior loops and pockets designed for certain things like the flashlights and collapsible axes. Then Cody showed them how the sleds were meant to hang on the backs of the packs so they could be accessed easily, while the shovels and the crowbars some of the Gladers were bringing along went through a couple of loops between the pack and the wearer's back.

"Forty-five minutes," Gally announced as they finished packing.

"Now all we've got to do is get into these bloody clothes," Newt commented dryly.

Teresa and Cody, the one supervising the other to make sure she didn't try to escape, disappeared into the storage room to change into their layers. The boys were more than happy to shed the smocks and elastic-waisted pants they had all woken up in.

These were replaced by multiple layers, as per Cody's instructions. The base layer was an undershirt and leggings for each. Next came a regular shirt, whether t-shirt, button-down or turtleneck, and a pair of pants, ranging from Chuck's jeans to Gally's camo fatigues to Minho's cargos. Everyone got a jacket over that, and then they had to put on the outerwear.

"Half an hour," Gally updated them as Teresa and Cody reappeared in their full winter getups to don their packs.

"Let's get out of here, then." Thomas was already getting hot in his layers.

"Last chance to change your minds," Cody told them all.

Silence met her words; she shrugged. "Don't say I didn't try."

As they trooped through the room with the couch, where the other three members of the base team were tied up, the woman called after them, "You're going to die out there!"

The boy yelled something about how unfair it was to drag Cody along on their suicide mission, but the Gladers ignored him. Cody cast a last look over her shoulder as Thomas steered her out of sight around the corner of the passageway.

Thomas stole a sidelong glance at her, hoping to glean something from her expression, but it was set and deadpan. He felt the weird urge to apologize ahead of time for what they were dragging her into, but he forgot it as they reached the door Frypan and Winston had opened earlier.

For a long moment they all stood staring at the door. Then Thomas glanced around at the others. "We gonna do this or what?"

Minho was the one to answer. "Let's get out of this shuck place."

"Good that," Newt growled, shooting back the security latch and spinning the handle.

The door swung open and a blast of snow and wind and cold almost powerful enough to knock them all off their feet blasted through. Thomas was totally overwhelmed for a second; already the cold seemed to have cut right into him. The Scorch had been one extreme. This was the other.

They all exchanged glances. Then, pulling his scarf up to cover his face, Thomas stepped out into the arctic storm.

* * *

A/N: Hey guys. Sorry it took me longer than I said it would to get this up. I can't promise I'll be quick about getting the next one up, either, so sorry in advance. :P

Thanks as always to UtilitarianShank, the Tezzerax, Creativewriter and XxCreativeNinjaxX for taking the time to review! You all are the best. :D


	9. Chapter 9

There was no keeping track of time in the relentless blizzard. Every minute that passed seemed like ten. They lost sight of the base almost immediately – it was even smaller from the outside than it had appeared on the inside – and there was no way to gauge how far they had gone.

This was different than running in the Maze or hiking the Scorch; it was slower, more arduous, exhausting at every floundering step. Thomas felt like he was walking miles and miles, but they probably covered very little distance compared to how far he was used to traveling.

The blizzard was like a living thing, pounding and tearing at them with an almighty viciousness. All the hatred and mistrust that had defined the Gladers since waking up gave way before the tremendous effort it took just to survive, even for just a few minutes; they stuck as close together as they could, wading through waist-deep snow and not even bothering to try and communicate over the roaring wind that blasted the snow mercilessly into their faces no matter which direction they turned.

The piercing chill ate its way straight to their bones. Despite the waterproof gloves and boots, Thomas' fingers and feet were burning with cold. His entire face, even though everything below the eyes was protected by his scarf, was numb and painfully icy.

Chuck, Winston, Minho and Cody started out with the snowshoes, so the others had to force their way through the snow. Sometimes the wind had packed it hard enough that they could walk on top of it, but more often than not they found themselves sinking up to the knees, hips or waists. Gally took the lead, plowing through the snow to break a trail as best he could for the others. Thomas came next to break it a bit more, making it easier for Newt, Teresa and Frypan to follow.

Thomas was absolutely exhausted after only a couple of minutes as the secondary trail-blazer; he couldn't imagine how much harder it must have been for Gally, but the bigger boy kept at it, forcing his way relentlessly through the snow.

Thomas couldn't remember any three hours that had ever passed so slowly. It felt like he had been dragging his way through this remorseless snow against this crushing wind for most of his life.

Then Cody signaled them to stop and they all clustered together to hear what she had to say. She had to shout to make herself heard over the wind. "The sun's going to go down soon!"

"What sun?" Minho yelled, tipping his head back to look upward. The snow was so thick and wild, you couldn't even distinguish the sky, but it must have been stormy gray. No sun anywhere, that much was certain.

"We need to dig in before the temperature drops!" Cody shouted.

Thomas wanted to push on further; although it felt like they had traveled miles, he didn't think they had actually gone very far at all. WCKD was sure to be hunting for them by now. But Cody was the one that knew how to survive these parts; he would have to trust her judgment on this one.

"Where?" He yelled over the incessant noise.

"We should be hitting slopes any time now!" She called. "That's where we want to spend the night!"

Sure enough, only a few minutes later they found it getting even harder to labor through the snow as the ground took on an upward slant. Cody flagged them all down again and pulled off her backpack. "We'll dig in here!"

"It's not even getting dark yet!" Gally shouted to make himself heard. "We've probably got another hour of daylight!"

"It'll take that long to dig in, and trust me, you don't want to be exposed once it starts getting dark!" Cody told him. Nobody else challenged her; the Gladers began breaking out their shovels and axes as Cody continued to talk over the wind, kicking a seemingly random spot. "You're gonna want to start right here; two of you dig down and inward as much as you can."

"What do the rest of us do?" Thomas questioned as Teresa and Newt started digging.

"Wait your turn," Cody responded shortly. "More than two of you will just get in each other's way."

Taking a break sounded good to Thomas, but he realized almost immediately that, exhausted though he was, staying still made him even more unbearably cold.

Teresa and Minho switched out, then Frypan and Newt. Cody instructed Winston and Chuck to use the other two shovels to clear the snow the diggers were excavating so it wouldn't get in the way.

It seemed like ages before the hole had become a tunnel just long enough for Minho to fit all the way into it on hands and knees and continue drilling forward, now at a slightly upward angle as per Cody's instructions, while Gally and Frypan enlarged the narrow tunnel he left behind him and the rest did their best to clear the snow they dug out to keep it out of their way.

Thomas took over for Minho a while later, then Newt for Frypan. Now the excavation was just big enough for one person digging at the front, two enlarging behind with the axes, and two at the entrance shoveling back the loose snow to those outside.

As Cody had warned them, by the time they had hewn out a fissure big enough for all of them to squeeze inside, it was getting dark, and by the time they'd enlarged it enough from within that they all had space to lie down, the blizzard was raging against the black backdrop of a cloud-smothered night.

They plugged up the entrance tunnel as best they could with a couple of their backpacks, then, once Cody reassured them that it wouldn't melt the roof of their shelter and bring the whole thing caving in on them, they lit up one of the fuel blocks, filled their canteens with snow and stood them around the weird little fire to melt it down.

Hardly anything was said as they wolfed down a dinner of canned beans and chicken. Cody instructed them to sleep on top of their blankets, explaining that the cold from the ground would leach into them more than the cold from the air. By now the burning fuel block had warmed it up enough that moisture gleamed on the snowy walls of their dugout, and it was warm enough to take off their outer layer – although not so warm that they were willing to shed their gloves or the jackets under their coats.

Next came a long period of quiet during which Thomas gradually realized none of them were willing to fall asleep because they didn't trust each other. He broke the silence by saying, "How about we take it in shifts to be on guard; two people per shift. And we'll make sure it's always two people who don't trust each other so neither one will try anything."

"Fine," Gally grunted after a pause.

"I'll take the first shift," Thomas offered.

Newt, sitting atop his folded-in-half blanket with his legs crossed, spoke next. "Me too."

"Great," Gally commented. "Then maybe the rest of us can get some sleep."

With no further ado, he flopped down, pulled his cloak over his head and rolled over on his side. Cody was already curled up atop her blanket, and it wasn't long before the others, one by one, gave in to their exhaustion and dozed off.

Nearly an hour passed; Thomas kept catching Newt eyeing him, but both of them would look away whenever their glances met.

Finally Thomas asked, "Hey, man, why do you hate me so much? It seems like, I dunno . . . it's like you don't trust some of the others, like Minho and Chuck, but with me you've got this _special_ hate going on. What did I do?"

Newt fixed a withering glare on him, the muscles in his jaw standing tight, and said nothing for a long moment.

* * *

 _He had known Thomas would catch up to him eventually, but he had been counting on it not happening so soon. And now was the worst possible time._

 _It was like Thomas appeared out of nowhere; he was lurking in the shadow of a corner and the first thing that alerted Newt to his presence was the butt of his gun swinging up and ramming into Newt's face, knocking him flat to the ground._

 _Tasting blood, Newt tried to scramble up; Thomas grabbed him by the shoulder and wrenched him to his knees, pressing the muzzle of the gun to his forehead. Terror pounded through Newt's blood._

" _Tommy, don't do this." He pleaded. "Teresa's going to die if I don't get there – you'd be killing her just as sure as you kill me."_

" _Two birds with one stone," Thomas growled._

" _I know you don't want Teresa to die like that!" Newt protested. "You don't want this to happen to any of us! We were friends – I know you remember! You saved my life!"_

" _Then consider me collecting on a favor," Thomas snapped._

" _Just let me save Teresa! Just this one last thing, Tommy!" Newt begged._

" _Oh, right, and then you'll come prancing back and turn yourself in!" Thomas barked. "Think I'm stupid, Newt?"_

 _Newt took a deep breath. He had to make it out of this alive or everything he and Teresa and Gally and the others had poured their blood, sweat and tears into would go up in smoke. The world would come crashing down. Teresa would meet a nightmarish end._

 _Summoning all the calm he could, Newt looked Thomas in the eye. "Please, Tommy. Please."_

 _Thomas pulled the trigger._

* * *

Newt shook his head bitterly. "You killed me."

Thomas studied his hands. "In – in my version of how things happened after the Maze, I killed you, too."

Newt glanced up sharply. Thomas shrugged, wishing he didn't have to think about this. "You weren't immune; they put you in the experiment to compare your brain patterns to the rest of ours."

He paused for a long, long moment, then said, "You caught the Flare. You became a crank. You begged me to kill you before you lost your mind."

Newt glared into Thomas' eyes for a good thirty seconds. That may not sound like much, but to Thomas it felt like an eternity. He stared back, not wanting to be the one to break eye contact. He needed Newt to understand.

Then, abruptly, the blond boy shifted toward Minho and shook him awake. "Your turn to sit guard. I'm going to sleep."

* * *

A/N: Guys, I'm sorry it's been so long. I mean, fifteen days isn't really that long. But relatively speaking, it was a lot longer than any of the breaks between my other updates. The problem is a combination of my having hardly any free time and the fact that it's hard to be disciplined enough to write instead of wasting time on youtube during whatever free time I do have.

Anyway, thanks to my reviewers! I hope I haven't lost you guys over the break since my last update.

Also, thoughts on this chapter? In particular, thoughts on that little look into Newt's memories?


	10. Chapter 10

As soon as Minho was up, Newt curled up atop his blankets with his coat pulled over him, facing toward the wall. Minutes passed, but Thomas was certain by the tense stillness Newt maintained that the blond boy wasn't asleep – just lying there staring at the wall in the dark.

He studied Minho out the corner of his eye. Although there had been an unofficial all-around truce while they were out in the storm, Minho was probably the least trusting of them all, since there was nobody here that he did trust. Everyone else had somebody they trusted to cover their back, but not Minho.

"Hey, man," Thomas spoke quietly after a while, missing the brotherly familiarity he was used to feeling between himself and Minho. "You holding up alright?"

Minho glanced sidelong at him. "I'm fine."

Searching for something else to say, Thomas tried, "I'm glad you trusted us enough to come."

"I don't trust any of you shuck-faces as far as I can throw you."

"Well . . ." Thomas ventured, "Why did you come, then? You've got to have some tiny bit of trust, or you'd have stayed behind and taken your chances instead of coming out in a blizzard with us."

Minho looked like he was debating whether or not to answer that question honestly; after a moment, he shrugged, commenting gruffly, "I might trust you a bit. Just a bit. Maybe. I don't know."

Slightly surprised, Thomas questioned, "Why?"

"I mean, either you're even more of a dumb slinthead than I thought or you actually believe all this jacked klunk about everything since the Maze being fake. If you remembered all the same stuff I do that's happened since the Maze, you wouldn't have put down your weapons and tied yourself up for me to use as a hostage. Or been cool with me having a gun. Or let me run around with you buggin' idiots instead of tying me up and leaving me with the people back at that base."

Thomas thought about this for a moment, then asked, "Why did you come with us?"

Minho glanced his way, raising one eyebrow questioningly. Thomas elaborated, "I mean, in your memories, you work for WCKD, right? So, if that place where we woke up was run by WCKD – "

"Do we know that?" Minho interrupted.

"Well – didn't the lady back at the base say they were part of WCKD? Even if not, I'm kind of assuming." Thomas shrugged. "They were the ones in control of us when we were in the Maze, so if nothing since then has been real then it seems logical to me that it's still WCKD."

"Sure," Minho agreed. "If it's all true, it's probably WCKD. But as far as I'm concerned, you slintheads woke me up and told me all this klunk. And like I said, I don't exactly trust any of you."

"Then why do you believe us?"

"Because I killed Winston and Gally."

It took Thomas a moment to absorb that; then he clarified, "You mean, in the version of things that you remember, they're both dead?"

Minho nodded. Thomas tried to read his expression, but couldn't. What was he feeling right now –regret for having killed them? Relief that they were alive? Fear that they would want to get even? Anger that he had, apparently, failed?

"It was in self-defense," Minho said after a moment.

"What?"

"My job was to round you all up," He explained. "I had hunted you down separate from the rest and cornered you – you were the one they wanted most. Gally and Winston attacked me." It was a long moment before he finished, "I stabbed them and left them to bleed out."

Thomas bit his lip. This guy was the same tough, sarcastic Minho he knew – but darker, weighed down by what he remembered from after the Maze: the path he had chosen, the betrayals he had made, the crimes he had committed against people for whom he would have died at one time.

It occurred to Thomas that the same was true of himself; to say that he was a more troubled person than he had been when they left the Maze was putting things mildly. He wasn't so different from Minho, really. He had shot one of his best friends in the head. He had been betrayed by Teresa, who he'd thought he was closer to than anybody else. And even though he knew she had stabbed him in the back because she thought it was the right thing to do, he had hated her for it.

"Why did you choose WCKD?" He asked. "After everything we went through together in the Maze."

Minho shrugged, staring at the wall. "We came out of the Maze and my memories from before came back. At least, they made me believe they were real memories, but now I don't know. I remembered that I had been there all along as a sleeper, so that you shanks would trust me when we got out." He thought about it for a moment, then added, "It was hard, especially at first, because – well, I mean, you were my shucking friends. But I was working for the good guys. We were trying to save the world. I did what I had to do."

Somehow that phrase triggered a memory in Thomas' head and he froze, suddenly petrified. Minho must have seen the change in his expression, because he questioned, "What?"

It took Thomas a moment to form the word, "Brenda."

"What?" Minho repeated.

"Brenda – she was with us before the flat trans – before I woke up here." Thomas was stunned. How had he forgotten her until now? "She can't have been just my imagination."

"She came after the Maze, right?" Minho questioned.

"Yeah, but – " Thomas trailed off. After a moment, he leaned far enough to reach Cody and shake her awake. "Hey. Cody, wake up."

Her eyes snapped open and darted around, trying to figure out where she was before she made a move. Thomas waited until her tense face relaxed, indicating that she had recognized him and remembered her situation. She sat up. "What?"

"Before we all woke up here, I had a friend. A really good friend – her name was Brenda. She was real."

Cody was shaking her head. "Everything came from the sim, Thomas."

"No, but – " He didn't want to believe it. "She was so _real_. She wasn't some character being run by a computer."

"Did _anything_ you remember seem like it was being run by a computer?"

"No." He shook his head. "But Brenda . . ."

"The people in the simulation were developed by a computer algorithm that plays off what's already in your head," Cody told him quietly. "If she seemed real, it was because she was taken out of what you wanted or expected or felt. She was custom-tailored to seem real to you."

Thomas sat silent, feeling empty as he absorbed what this meant. A shadow of sympathy played across Cody's face as she watched him, but she said nothing.

Finally Thomas mumbled hollowly, "I got Newt and Teresa and Chuck back. It would have been too good to be true if I hadn't lost someone in exchange."

"It sucks," Cody told him softly.

Irritated that she was acting like she understood his loss, he snapped, "Like you would know."

She scoffed harshly. "What, you think you're the only one that knows what it is to lose someone?"

"You've never been where I have," Thomas retorted. "The people I love are _everything_ to me. They're all I have. You have a life and a family and memories. It's not the same."

Cody's eyes burned furiously; her voice was icy as she gritted, "You think you have a greater capacity for love because of what you've been through? How long have you known any of these people that matter so much to you? A couple of months? My family was my _world_! I lost them, okay? I lost my parents and my brother and it _killed_ me!"

As she calmed down from her outburst, Thomas studied her, conflicted between anger and pity. He couldn't remember his parents and siblings, which made family seem all the more important to him. He wondered whether it was worse to lose them or to never know them.

A moment later Cody turned away abruptly, saying over her shoulder, "Sorry."

She curled up on her blankets once again, turning toward the wall the way Newt had and staying too still to be asleep.

Thomas glanced at Minho; the other boy shook his head. "You got a real knack for rubbing shanks the wrong way."

* * *

A/N: I haven't updated since February and it's kind of June. Really sorry, guys. It's not that I'm not interested in this story, it's just that I'm disorganized and inefficient. :P I'm going to try to do better, I promise.

Huge thanks to my reviewers! You guys' feedback is the only thing that motivates me to keep pounding away at this. UtilitarianShank and rosieposie511, you guys are the best! I hope you're still with me even though it's been so long since I posted. :(


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